“It’s not that I don’t want the lodge. I mean, I do and I don’t. It’s home, you know. And what about Rosie? She’s devoted her entire life to this house and to us and we’re going to what…throw her out to be homeless and unemployed when she should be relaxing and enjoying herself?”
“Nobody’s going to throw Rosie out. If the new owners don’t want to keep her on, or she doesn’t like them, then we’ll find her a place and make sure she’s taken care of. And it’s home for all of us, too, so it would be hard to see it go, but you get to have a life, too.”
Josh cleared his throat before taking a long drink of soda, and Mitch realized his brother was actually choked up. “Josh, nobody’s going to hold this against you.”
“I keep thinking I could give it a couple more years. If this ATV plan works, we could more than double the lodge’s income and then we could hire somebody to manage the place, leaving me free to do whatever. But I’ve told myself to give it a couple more years before, and the years keep passing by and here I still am.”
“Do you know what you want to do?”
Josh laughed. “That’s the worst part. I don’t even know. I just want to get away from here and do…something. Anything.”
“Give us a little time to figure it out and we’ll make sure you get to go do something.”
They were quiet a few minutes, then Josh jabbed him with an elbow. “No Paige tonight?”
“She canceled on me. Said something came up.”
“Probably had to wash her hair.”
“You’re a funny guy.” He might even have laughed if not for remembering the odd note in her voice when she’d left the message.
Something had been bothering her. Maybe he should have called her to make sure everything was okay. It could be her mom. Or maybe it was just a problem at the diner. She hadn’t said it was an emergency.
“When are you going to admit she’s different?”
Mitch glared at his brother as if he could make him take that back by sheer mental force. “Mind your own business.”
“Somebody needs to get involved or you’re going to blow it.”
“Blow what? Like I’ve told you several times, we’re just having a little fun. She’s no different than…” He couldn’t finish it. He wanted to, but he couldn’t force himself to say Paige was no different than any other woman he’d had a little fun with. “Shit.”
To his credit, Josh didn’t jump on him for the admission by omission. He just sipped his soda and let Mitch come to terms with the fact he cared about a woman. A lot.
“We want different things out of life,” Mitch said, clinging to the one good reason he had for not giving in to his feelings.
“So, what, you’re just going to leave?”
“Am I just supposed to stay? Walk away from Northern Star Demolition and all the people I employ so I can hang out in Whitford and sleep in her damn twin bed? That company means everything to me.”
“She has a twin bed?”
“Way to focus on the important stuff.”
“What are you going to do?”
The only thing he could do. “I’m going to enjoy the time I have left with Paige and then I’m going to go back to living my life and she’ll stay here and live hers.”
“You’re an idiot.”
“Says the schmuck who can’t see what’s right in front of him.”
Josh scowled. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing. I’ve got to go muck through my email inbox.”
He ended up mucking through his own head more than his inbox, but he couldn’t reach any other conclusion than the one he’d shared with Josh—he had to go and she had to stay.
At least, unlike Drew and Mallory, they’d started out on the same page so he had nobody to blame but himself.
Chapter Eighteen
She definitely needed more potato chips. Staring down at her shopping basket, Paige did a mental count and, sure enough, she had more chocolate than she did salty and crunchy. There had to be a handful of chips for every chocolate.
Maybe she should shake it up with some corn chips. They were very salty and would balance out her comfort-food ratio nicely. She grabbed a bag and headed for the register, where she unloaded her bounty onto the counter.
“Oh, hell,” Fran said, shaking her head. “I had such high hopes for that boy this time.”
Paige had to bite back a bad word. She knew she should have gone down to the city and hit a big grocery store. “That boy has to go back to work next week. Just stocking up to fill the hot-sex void so I don’t go on a murderous crime spree.”
“Honey, I know heartbreak countermeasures when I see them.”
“I think I caught it in time.” Paige was impressed she’d managed to say it as if she believed it. “I’ll probably end up throwing half of this away.”
“Bring it to the next movie night. There’s always at least one woman wanting to drown her sorrows in chocolate with a salty, crunchy chaser.”